England tour of South Africa will be judged a failure - but not an abject one

That’s that. Tour over. England coach Stuart Lancaster still has the Port
Elizabeth Test to develop combinations and explore the potential of his
squad, but the series has gone and in the harsh world of international sport
the South African odyssey must be judged a failure. Not an abject one.

Debrief: Stuart Lancaster, the England head coach talks to Tom Palmer after their defeat during the second test match between South Africa and England at Ellis ParkPhoto: GETTY IMAGES

The performance in the first half of the first Test raised grounds for hope and the second-half rally at Ellis Park was more than many teams would have managed against a rampant South Africa.

But Saturday’s defeat by the Boks has to be viewed in the context of Wales having their first victory in Australia for 43 years snatched from them with the last kick of the match, and Ireland’s magnificent effort against the All Blacks where they lost out to a Dan Carter dropped goal in the dying seconds of a compelling encounter.

Wales and Ireland were genuinely unlucky not to come out winners. You never had that feeling about England against the Boks at Ellis Park.

The All Blacks had the bulk of their World Cup winning side on display and Ireland were responding to a 42-10 thumping in the first Test, yet if referee Nigel Owens had not ruled that Mike Ross had pulled Tony Woodcock onto him to concede a penalty, a decision which could easily have gone the other way, Jonathan Sexton might have had a shot to win Ireland’s first ever game against the All Blacks.

Contrast that with England’s effort against a Bok side that is way short of New Zealand’s class, a Bok team which, like England, are finding their feet after a dismal World Cup.

Test match rugby is about the here and now, and for all Lancaster’s talk about building for the future, he has yet to grab a victory on South African soil which would do so much for the confidence of his players.

Youngsters coming off the production line and impressing on the training field or having good spells in a game is fine, but only success takes teams to the next level. Victories kill argument and speculation. There are no bad victories against southern hemisphere opposition and England need one badly.

England face South Africa again on Saturday, then meet New Zealand, Australia and the Boks again at Twickenham in the autumn. There is clearly a possibility of them coming up short in all those encounters. Talk of building towards the Rugby World Cup in 2015 would start to look tawdry and inflated then.

There is a naivety to Lancaster which is as much strength as it is a weakness. On the positive side it has allowed him to see things without the baggage of previous regimes.

Tom Johnson, Geoff Parling, Chris Robshaw and Mouritz Botha have all benefited from the faith Lancaster has invested in them as players, and there is no doubt that this is a united, hard-working upbeat bunch.

But Test matches are not won by a happy-clappy approach and Lancaster’s decision to take the Test team to Kimberley last week to support the midweek guys, on the all for one and one for all principle, was wrong.

Kimberley was an early start and an hour’s flight away and he would have been better leaving the Test side in Johannesburg to rest up and prepare.

It was also a mistake not to have Danny Care and James Haskell closer to the side. Neither was involved in either Test and Care in particular has shown enough form in recent weeks to warrant a seat on the bench at the very least. Test experience, as Lancaster is finding out, is not to be sniffed at.

That said, no one can question the work ethic of the England coaching team. Graham Rowntree’s alarm has been going off at 5.30am on this tour, and Lancaster himself has been unfailingly obliging and courteous in accommodating media requests.

But it is clear that the two of them are stretched by the demands of running two teams and that they need better qualified support. Mike Catt, Jonathan Callard and Simon Hardy, the other England coaches on this trip, are grievously short of knowledge and feel at this level.

Sweeteners for Lancaster? He knows a great deal more about his players than he did in March. Robshaw continues to impress as a man, captain and player, and Lancaster himself is close to getting it absolutely right.

The matter which he can’t influence, and which has had a major impact on the two games to date, is that his players do not appear to be as big and robust as the Springboks.

That’s outside his remit. But England’s third quarter collapse in Durban and their appalling start in Johannesburg are issues which should have been addressed. Those set backs fall squarely in his in-tray.